Colchester News
Doctors want organ donor law to allow more life-savers like Cassie McCord
9:00am Wednesday 22nd February 2012
JACKIE McCord remembers the moment clearly. She was at Queen’s Hospital, Romford, with her 16-year-old daughter, Cassie, who had undergone surgery after being knocked down in Head Street, Colchester.
A specialist nurse came in and asked if she would consider allowing Cassie’s organs being donated for transplant.
The explosion of feelings was traumatic. It was tacit confirmation her daughter might not survive.
But Jackie was clear. Yes, she told the nurse, she did want Cassie’s organs to go to help others.
A few hours later, Cassie was declared dead and her organs were taken.
A woman in her thirties received her bowel and liver, a 29-year-old doctor was given one of her kidneys, while a 24-year-old soldier who had served in Afghanistan had received the other.
Cassie’s corneas gave sight to two 40-year-olds, while her scleras, the white part of the eye, were donated to a 49-year-old and a five-year-old.
Donation rates have risen by 25 per cent in recent times and a record number of transplants – 3,706 – were carried out in the UK in 2009-10.
However, by the end of that year, 7,997 patients were still on the waiting list for donor organs.
The nature of organ donation means life-saving transplant operations can very often only be carried out because someone else had died. The crucial decisions are asked of donor relatives at a time when they are in crisis, and most likely facing the worst moment of their lives.
The British Medical Association believes families should be spared such decisions at a difficult time, by the adoption of a new system.
It feels the time is right to move to a situation where a person is presumed to have agreed to donate their organs unless they have stated otherwise.
The Welsh government is already planning a draft Bill for such an opt-out system in the principality by the summer.
Dr Marion Wood, clinical lead on organ donation for Colchester Hospital University Foundation Trust, sees the sense in the move..
She explained: “Research shows us the majority of people would wish to have a transplant if they needed one.
“We also know the majority of people support organ donation.However, there is a gap between that and the number of people who are on the organ donor register.”
Dr Wood puts this down to nothing more than people simply never getting round to signing up.
She said: “We are full of good intentions, but never quite manage to achieve all we hope to do.
“Putting ourselves on the organ donor register is one of those things.”
Dr Wood speaks not just as a health professional, but also from personal experience.
She said: “My husband’s younger brother had a catastrophic brain bleed in his early twenties.
“It became clear he was unlikely to survive and my husband and his sister wanted his organs to be donated.
“They were quite clear about it.
“They were of the view these organs were young and fit and this young, fit man could no longer make use of them.
“They asked for his organs to be donated and it gave them a sense of comfort and resolution.
“His brother had undergone a tragedy which no one could do anything about, but at least some good came out of it.
“A lot of families have said donating organs helped them to reconcile the tragedy of the loss of a loved one.
“There are families who feel they have missed an opportunity of donating and the new system would help this.”